The 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival saw the premiere of a short comedy sci-fi film that paid tribute to our favourite series – Blake’s Junction 7. Since then the film has received only limited screenings but has won rave reviews. There have been desperate pleas for wider availability from those not lucky enough to have seen it. We caught up with the creator/writer of Blake’s Junction 7 Tim Plester to find out more about this unique addition to Blake’s 7 lore.
How did you meet the director of the film, Ben Gregor?
Me and Ben met almost 10 years ago at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I’d written something that was premiering up there and Ben was directing a new play. We happened to see each other’s shows, formed a kind of mutual-appreciation society and vowed to one day work together…
What other projects have you worked on together?
The first project we worked on together was an on-line trailer for a stageplay of mine; a western called ‘Yellow Longhair’. This was in the summer of 2000. To my knowledge, we were the first people in the country to film a trailer for a theatre production and put it up on the net. Of course, no-one came to see the show, but that’s beside the point.
Where did the idea for Blake’s Junction 7 come from?
That’s always a tricky one, but the answer lies somewhere in amongst my ongoing fascination with the fine-line that exists between the glamorous and the mundane. By deliberately crashing those two worlds together and placing unusual characters in a banal situation, I hoped to create a kind of hybrid world which would be interesting to explore.
Were you a fan of the show?
I remember watching Blake’s 7 as avidly as the next child back when it originally aired in the late 70’s and early 1980s. The climax to that final episode probably had as profound an affect on my impressionable young mind as the closing sepia freeze-frame of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid or the revelation that Darth Vader is actually Luke’s father. Ben, on the other hand, didn’t grow up in the UK, and so had never seen Blake’s 7. I’m convinced that this was one of the key elements in us getting the tone of the film right. For Ben it always had to work as a film on its own merits – without simply being something that only hardcore fans would appreciate and understand. For that reason alone, I’ve never seen the film as a spoof or a parody of the original.
It was a follow-up to your previous short Ant Muzak, which featured 1980′s pop band Adam and the Ants embarking on a spot of late-night supermarket shopping. What message are you trying to convey in these films?
I’m often at pains to point out that, on at least one very important level, the film isn’t even really about Blake’s 7 at all. What I mean by that, is that it’s actually a film about a family stopping off at a motorway service station in the middle of the night. The fact that this family just happen to be the characters from Blake’s 7 is simply the exotic garnish on top. Ant Muzak came from exactly that same starting point. In both films, the humour derives from the comedy of juxtaposition; creating what Dennis Potter might’ve described as “a ripple on the surface of reality”. Back in 1981, when I was 11 and more regularly visiting service stations and supermarkets with my mother and father and younger sister, my favourite pop group were Adam and the Ants and Blake’s 7 was amongst my favourite TV shows. The memories of those two things just seemed to morph together somewhere in my head.
Why did you set the film at a motorway service station?
Maybe I’m alone in this, but there’s something about motorway service stations (and supermarkets too for that matter) which strikes me as instantly surreal. Particularly at that ungodly hour of the morning! In one sense, a motorway service station doesn’t even really exist. They are places between places; invented stop-off points between actual real destinations. People are always passing through, but no-one ever stays. As environments, they remain in a kind of constant stationary flux (if that’s not a contradiction in terms), whilst the world around them continues its effortlessly slow revolve. Or something… Anyway, these rather soulless temples to the needs and desires of our modern-day 24-hour consumer culture strike me as exactly the kind of places where the colourful cult characters from popular culture might go to when they “die”. In fact, my challenge is for people to visit a motorway service station at 3am on a Tuesday morning and prove to me that the heroes and villains from their favourite bygone British-made space-opera AREN’T there – begrudgingly filling-up on petrol and over-priced cuisine.
Were you concerned about copyright issues particularly as Terry Nation’s Estate and Blake’s 7 Enterprises are not renowned for their sense of humour?
Homage is usually a word I like to try and use in these circumstances. We had the same kind of concerns when we were making Ant Muzak, but in the end we decided that our best mode of defence would reside in striving to create something that was well-made, which didn’t replicate any existing sets or plot-lines and which had an obvious respect for the source material it was being inspired by. Everybody who worked on the film worked on it for free, and it wasn’t made for any financial gain on either mine or Ben’s parts. If anything, I’d like to believe the film has perhaps even gone some small way towards reawakening people’s interest in the original series. But, who can really say? By the way, if you look very, very closely during the scene when Vila (Martin Freeman) is struggling to order fish and chips, you may notice that the sullen chef’s name-tag reads as “Terry”. Not mere coincidence I hasten to add.
The film begins with ‘Blake’s 7” struggling through life without Blake. Was this something that amused you about the original series – Blake’s 7 without Blake?
TP: Absolutely. That fact has always tickled me somewhat. It was akin to continuing to make, say, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century without Buck being in it! However, Blake consequently became this powerful brooding presence beneath the surface of the show, and his absence obviously gave Avon the necessary room to step forward and become everyone’s favourite anti-hero. The only other successful British TV show I can think of which has continued without it’s main character, yet retained the same title is Taggart. Well, that and Rentaghost… possibly.
What was Blake up to in the Gents?
“Calamari. Goes straight through me”, are, I believe, the words that Roj utters as he emerges from the cubicle. I’ll allow you to use your own imaginations on that one! Incidentally, the scene between Avon and Blake in the Gents toilets is my personal favourite moment of the whole film. It was our little nod to the ever-growing underbelly of Blake’s 7 filk literature out there, and Mark (Heap) and Johnny (Vegas) captured the pathos of the situation to absolute perfection. I’ve already left strict instructions for that clip to be shown at my funeral.
Your film actually looks glossier and far more expensive than the original series. Did you deliberately steer clear of mocking the original’s dodgy production values?
This brings me back to my earlier comment about never seeing the film as some kind of lazy spoof or half-hearted parody-by-numbers. It was always important to us that we strove to make the film somehow transcend the source material, whilst, at the same time, remaining reverential to the original series and the people who had helped to create it. For us, one of the “jokes” of the film was to bring a glossy widescreen landscape to something as seemingly normal and humdrum as a motorway service station.
You managed to assemble an amazing cast. How did you persuade them to take part?
It humbles me to this day that they all agreed to be involved with the project and that none of them were forced to pull-out due to other commitments. Remember, no-one was getting paid, so we didn’t really have a leg to stand on should any other work have come up. Mackenzie had recently finished filming Brothers Grimm with Terry Gilliam, and Martin was just about to go off and do Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, so we certainly got lucky in terms of scheduling. It also helped that, being an actor myself, I’d been fortunate enough to work with most of them at some point over the previous few years, and so was able to shortcut going through agents as much as possible.
Were the cast familiar with Blake’s 7?
Most of the cast, like myself, had grown-up watching the show on TV, and we gave each of them a couple of carefully chosen key episodes to help refresh their memories (in the name of research) before we started filming. The only member of the cast who claimed not to have ever seen an episode was Mark Heap (Avon). He later admitted that he’d become something of a fan of the show during the time he’d been working on the film. I’m not entirely sure he was thanking us for that however.
Mackenzie Crook is a revelation as Servalan! Did he take much persuading to wear drag?
It’s amazing what a short black wig and a couple of water-filled condoms tucked inside a Miss Selfridge’s brassiere can do!
How did you get in touch with Peter Tuddenham?
Michael Keating has the same acting agent as me, and he kindly agreed to put me in touch with Peter. I still have a copy of the initial answer-phone message that Peter left for me. He’d just got back from a family holiday in Goa, and was suffering from a pretty severe case of jet-lag. I carried that message around on my old dictaphone for months, saying “listen to this everyone, I got a phone call from Orac the other day!”
The costumes are very impressive and surprisingly authentic looking – where did you get them from?
That’ll be a very special chap called Mr. Gammon – who used to be the stylist for Busted. We first met during a tedious commercial shoot, and got talking at lunchtime about Adam Ant (who Gammon had done some work for during his ‘Wonderful’ tour). Gammon went on to reveal himself as a massive Doctor Who freak, and when I mentioned our plans for Blake’s Junction 7 he leapt at the chance to get involved. Quite literally!
Where did the props such as Orac come from?
All the props (including the fully-functioning Orac, the teleport bracelets and the sonic sound-guns) were made by a couple of then-students at The Central School of Speech & Drama in London; Scott Stevenson and Frankie Thorbourne. Scott was a fan of the original show, and so his attention to detail was second-to-none. At the launch for the Blake’s 7 Season 2 DVD’s (at which we screened the film), Scott got the chance to meet Matt Irvine and compare his props with some of the originals. That moment alone made all the hard work worthwhile for him.
The teleport effect at the end was very effective. How was this achieved?
Well, we got monumentally lucky with that particular favour (all Ben’s doing as it happens). That sequence was masterminded by the SFX-wizards at a post-production company called The Mill, in London. These are the same guys who won an Oscar for their work on Gladiator. They also handled the digital effects on the new Doctor Who series, so they certainly know their onions! That said, I don’t think they’d ever been asked to dematerialise a silver Volvo 245 and a 5-berth caravan before. I suspect it may be some time before they’re asked to do so again.
How long did it take to film the movie? Did the general public get in the way?
We shot the film over 2-and-a-half long and gruelling nights out at Newport Pagnell services on the M1. Encroaching daylight and people’s confused body clocks were constantly against us, but it also went a long way towards creating a slightly other-wordly energy on set. It’s perhaps worth keeping in mind the fact that the film’s cast and crew ended-up living at the location for the duration of the shoot (sleeping and eating at the attached Travelodge). Not only did this help add to the complete service station experience for everyone involved, but it also made for at least one particularly eventful incident, when we had to try and smuggle Mackenzie Crook (in full Supreme Commander Servalan costume and make-up) past a raucous 18th birthday party celebration by throwing his peacock-feathered cloak over his head! Ahhh, happy days indeed.
Paul Darrow attended the screening. What did he think of it?
Paul came to one of our early London screenings and sat next to a chap from Brazil who’d never heard of Blake’s 7. That was a good test in itself of how well the film worked when faced with an audience not familiar with the work of Terry Nation or the BBC Radiophonics Department. That night was also the first time that Mark Heap had seen the finished film, and so the two Avons entertained us all with some light-hearted banter afterwards (Mark and Paul, it transpired, had briefly worked together on a show called The Strangerers). What was particularly pleasing about Paul’s reaction to the screening, was that he really seemed to connect with the other levels on which we were attempting to make the film work and resonate.
Have you shown it to other cast members?
Stephen Grief came along to the premiere, and we’ve since shown the film in the presence of Gareth Thomas, Jacqueline Pearce, Michael Keating (twice), Jan Chappell, Brian Croucher and the late David Jackson. There was a particularly loud hoot from Jackie Pearce when Mackenzie first appeared on the screen and Gareth thanked us for managing to find “someone even more portly” than him to portray Blake.
What kind of feedback have you had from the fans?
The feedback from the fanbase has been overwhelmingly positive. The film was made with love for the original series (and vintage British sci-fi in general), and I think that fact shines through on screen. The first time we screened the film in front of a partisan crowd, at the 2004 Cult TV Festival in Weston-Super-Mare, the huge cheer which greeted Orac’s opening line almost took the roof off! Up until that point me and Ben had both been genuinely concerned about whether or not we’d be able to make it back to our chalet without being lynched.
The film has been described as the second part of a trilogy. What’s next?
Next up is World Of Wrestling. We’re putting together the cast at the moment and hope to shoot it early next year. Inspired by the golden age of televised British wrestling (think Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks et al), the final part of the trilogy takes place onboard a perfectly ordinary night-bus during an ever-so-slightly skewed weekday evening. Expect even more of the same. But with leotards.
Will the film ever be made commercially available?
Discussions and negotiations about a commercial DVD release for the trilogy (when completed) are ongoing. No contracts have been signed as yet, but fingers crossed something will happen in the months ahead.
There is now a Junction 7 website. What made you do that?
We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of on-line interest the film has generated over the past 12 months-or-so, and thought it probably made sense to create an official super-highway presence for ourselves. You can visit us at www.blakesjunction7.com.
Do you think Blake’s 7 will/should come back?
Personally, I’m a big fan of the new Battlestar Galactica series, so I see no reason why not. Me and Ben had the good fortune to meet with Simon Moorhead of (the much-maligned) Blake’s 7 Enterprises, whilst at the Slamdance film festival in Utah earlier this year. Should they manage to pull off what they hope to achieve with the planned revival, we could all be in for a treat. Patience, as they say, is a virtue…
PS: It may interest people to know that Ben and his wife met on the set of ‘Blake’s Junction 7’. All of which means, in a roundabout way, that a new life is about to enter the universe as a direct result of those few days we happened to spent stranded out at Newport Pagnell services. Now there’s a heart-warming thought to leave you with if ever I heard one.
This article originally appeared in Scorpio Attack fanzine by Jonathan Helm
